how to mend a broken superhero
by RosiePeverell
Summary: Tony's recovery turns out to be a lot harder than Pepper's. COMPLETE.


At first he managed to trick himself into thinking that it would be easy. Some medication, a nice getaway with Pepper, the temporary destruction of an obsession that had kept him locked away from the world and his relationship during the months after New York – all seemed like an easy fix. But the panic never fully went away. The memories of helplessness, of impending death, of the world crushing him and constricting his breathing and dampening his sharp mind were daily reminders that Tony Stark could be very, very weak.

In the end, his problems far outweighed the steps to a solution, and it turned out to be a struggle, even for the great Iron Man.

Golden morning light burst through the curtains and Tony, lying on his front in bed, covered his eyes with a forearm, mumbling unintelligible words. "You have to get out of bed, Tony," Pepper said, cheerful voice hiding an ocean of concern.

"I'm still catching up on several days' worth of sleep, honey," he sighed.

"It doesn't work that way," she said. She sat beside him, hand on the small of his back, warm through the cream coloured sheets, the weight of her body causing the mattress to slouch. He considered turning on his side, shutting her out, but knew it would make her mad. He felt like he was treading on eggshells sometimes – worried his phone call from the booth in Tennessee hadn't been enough, though she'd told him often enough how good it had been to know he was alive, how trivial their problems seemed in the light of his possible death.

He raised his arm an inch and looked at her. She was already dressed, impeccably as usual, hair perfect, makeup done. And she was wearing that _look_. He couldn't not do what she wanted. He was powerless.

He rolled over and sat up, leaning towards her. "I'm so lucky to have you," he murmured.

"I know," she smiled, and kissed him.

–

Tony thanked the Gods, or whoever, for Pepper's team of doctors. Once Pepper was fixed it was as though death could not touch her at all, though deep down he knew that wasn't true. When the hot red fire coursing through her was gone he felt safe to hold her, to love her. Before the final surgery, and for a few weeks after, he'd refused sex, and though Pepper never pleaded, he felt her disappointment, but he knew she understood even if she didn't agree. He'd seen the emotions of the other experiments cause them to boil over and explode and more than once he had nightmares that started off as sex dreams and ended with them both burning to death in their bed, from which he'd wake in a sweat, coming down from a hard-on, both horny as anything and scared half to death.

But he never told her about those dreams, because a few months after the end of the battle, he didn't really need to. He had the real her back, and that was all that really mattered.

"Although," he said once, over breakfast in their new place, "those freaky combat powers you got from the fire thing were... incredible. I'm gonna miss seeing you do that."

"It's a shame," she replied, swallowing a mouthful of peach. "Sometimes I really want to beat you up and without super strength... well, it's just not as satisfying."

"You still have super strength," he said, and she smiled at him. It was the smile that he lived for, spent a lot of time trying to get, that made his day when it happened.

When Pepper woke up in her crisp, white hospital bed, her last surgery done, he'd breathed such a sigh of relief. It was over. Pepper – and her smile – were going to be just fine.

–

Tony's recovery turned out to be a lot harder than Pepper's.

The suits – fine, the destroyed house – no problem. The shrapnel in his chest, even – just great. But Tony's traitorous brain? That was where the real issue lay.

All his life Tony had been an unwilling patient. He was okay with conducting experiments on himself, but the second a kid with a stethoscope started poking around his body and his history and his head his skin started to crawl and he was looking for a way out, as if he were back in a cave in Afghanistan and not sitting comfortably on a bed in a building that was full of people dedicated to making him feel better.

"You can't try to go this alone," a steadily healing Happy said, briefly looking over at him from his hospital bed. "Believe me, Tony; you have a support system."

"You know," Tony said, snapping his fingers in front of Happy's face, "it's really hard to believe that you're supporting me when you can't keep your eyes off the TV for the few seconds it takes to tell me that."

"Have you ever felt a love so strong that in the face of it everything else in life seems trivial?" Happy enthused.

"Yeah," Tony said. "For Pepper."

Happy pointed at the TV, on which a striking, dark-haired woman in a white dress was speaking to a blond man in a tux, and said, "That's my Pepper."

–

At first, Tony tried to go it alone. The idea of talking to a complete stranger with a bunch of medical degrees displayed on his polished wooden walls was enough to drive Tony to breaking point, which should have meant that talking about it with Pepper, his one and only, wouldn't be as hard.

But it was.

Because Pepper, far from condemning him for it, still wouldn't understand, or so he thought. The woman was put together in more ways than one, and Tony appreciated that, but when lying awake at night with her sleeping by his side he felt cut off from her, and that made him feel guilty, and the guilt would drive him downstairs for a drink and a fruitless half-hour spent tinkering or sitting on the couch, bathed in the light of his computer, checking and rechecking his mail while the clock ticked up to 2, 3, 4am.

And he'd wake up in the morning more tired than he'd been before going to sleep, and Pepper's morning kiss and a cup of coffee wouldn't be enough to make the day ahead look brighter.

Sometimes Tony envied her strength of mind. She'd been through a torturous experiment that had left her physically drained for weeks after the battle, had killed a man and been almost killed herself, but she kept her composure, always had a smile, and despite all of it still managed to reassure him. He would sit at her hospital bed with his head resting on her stomach while she stroked his hair, told him it would all be okay, not to worry, he would get through it, he would get better, be better, when it should've been him reassuring her.

And it was true; it would get better, but it took him a long time to realise how to do it.

–

Turned out that what Tony needed was a combination of things.

The first was people.

Having Pepper there helped beyond measure, once Tony was ready to let her help him. She embraced the role as she had first embraced him – without reservations or a sign of regret, with a dedication that rocked Tony to his core.

When he woke in the middle of the night sweating and panting from his nightmares, she was there, awake, rubbing his back, enveloping him, telling him it was okay while the wind whistled down the hill. When he would go to stand on the edge of the cliff, looking down at the water underneath which the remains of his house still lay, she would call him to make sure he was alright, or pick him up, because he'd often walk and forget that the way back home was an uphill climb, and sometimes his chest still ached from the surgery and when that happened he was likely to pause on the side of the road, hand in a fist over where his heart beat out of time, waiting for the pain to go away and worrying that it never would.

Pepper was so good to him that he constantly felt guilty for being so hopeless.

"You're sick, Tony. It's okay to get sick sometimes," she'd say. "You can't blame yourself for what other people have done to you against your will."

He'd nod and pretend to believe it, all the while thinking about how he'd left a crippled Killian standing on the roof, how his arrogance had led all this to happen. Pepper would say that what he'd done was no reason for Aldrich to react the way he had. And he supposed she was right, but sometimes it was hard not to blame himself.

Time passed and Pepper stayed, and when Happy was finally well enough to go home he'd make sure that Tony visited. Even Cap popped in a couple times, apparently over any ill feelings he'd harboured towards Tony before.

The second was Iron Man.

It would be always a part of him, but Tony swore to never make it a distraction from the important things again, like Pepper, and sleep, and food. He built a new suit from scratch, number 43, on his days off, when Pepper was at work and he had nothing else to do. It made him feel calm in a way it hadn't in the months since New York. It was more a hobby than an obssession.

The third was time.

A year went by and things stayed quiet. S.H.I.E.L.D., whatever it was doing, did its business away from Iron Man, and any new threat was easily handled by Cap or, when he decided to grace Midgard with his presence, Thor. Tony kept track of those events mainly to see how much damage they'd managed to do. It was never as impressive as on the occasions when Tony had been involved.

He would sit on the couch with an arm around a tired Pepper's shoulders, watching the late night news and waiting for her to stand up to go to bed so that he could follow, maybe holding her hand while she walked a step ahead, to collapse onto the mattress, crawl under the covers and fall asleep with limbs entangled. Pepper and Tony were busy, tired, people.

So as Pepper had said, it really was time and _sleep_. Time and sleep and lazy Sunday mornings eating croissants on the balcony, plans and robotics and dangerous experiments ignored for a day, no need to go to work until midday or later. The sun beat down on Los Angeles that first summer, and Tony made a concentrated effort to soak it up.

Four months, six months, eight months, ten; time passed and no attacks were forthcoming, and Tony started, finally, to wake up fully rested and happy.

–

But the world wouldn't stay easily handled forever. They all knew that, and prepared for it constantly.

Pepper walked down the stairs to his workshop one afternoon, only a few weeks after her last surgery, and found him drawing plans for new suit weapons. She kissed his neck and wound her arms around his middle, resting her head lightly on his shoulder. It left his hands free to sketch, but he put the pencil down anyway and reached back to stroke her hair.

"I'm worried, Pepper," he sighed.

"I know," she said. "It's okay."

"I don't know how long it's going to last. What if... we're attacked again and I break down? Pepper, I swear I'm getting old because sometimes it feels like the world's moving too fast for me."

"Tony," she said sternly, letting go of him and swivelling his chair to face her. "I know that whatever happens to us, you can handle it. You're always telling me that I'm the strong one and that's... well that's true -" she chuckled, "- but that doesn't make you weak. I trust you."

His eyebrows furrowed. "You still trust me?"

She said, "Completely."

"I'm so lucky to have you," he said.

"I know," she said, and kissed him.


End file.
